The Fourth International Conference of New and Restored Democracies will be held in Cotonou, Benin, from 4 to 6 December this year, Antoine Kolawole Idji, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Benin, announced at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.
Despite a decline in its production of raw opium in 2000, Afghanistan remained by far the world's largest opium poppy producer, Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), said at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.
Building consensus around the conflicting concepts of State sovereignty and international responsibility would be the focus of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Canada's Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.
The European Union should no longer be seen as merely a group of countries with a large financial capacity, but as a protagonist in the areas of foreign policy, diplomacy, defence policy and particularly all aspects of international peacekeeping operations, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that he believes the time had now come for the parties to the Cyprus problem to "move ahead" with meaningful negotiations leading to a comprehensive settlement.
The lifting of the European Union sanctions on Austria was a victory for reason and for Europe, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.
As the coordinator of the United Nations system at the country level, its arm for development and its main advocacy tool, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was going to play the largest role in the implementation of the Millennium Declaration, Associate Administrator Zephirin Diabre told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing.
